Downey, California.
Typical home $879,552 (+2.3% in a year), asking rent $2,257 (+2.7%). Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,354 (+104%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,898 +2%
- $859,654$879,552 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $139,321 +19%
- $740,231$879,552 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Downey$4,617
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Downey, CA rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Downey, CA rose 2.7% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Downey runs $3,800/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,892 in Jan 2025.
That is $6,057 a month against $2,257 rent: a $4,617 mortgage payment, plus $499 property tax and $942 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Downey
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$6,057
- Renting$2,257
- Mortgage only$4,617
Property tax · $499/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Los Angeles County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $942/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Downey, Los Angeles County, California
Downey is a city of 114,355 people in Los Angeles County. Half its households earn more than $90,699 a year and half less, against $90,112 across Los Angeles County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 51% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 49% are rented. Unemployment in Downey was 4.7% in August 2026, and Los Angeles County had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Downey is a city in Los Angeles County with a population of a size that makes it one of the larger cities in the county's southeast. Household incomes are about the same as across the county, and fewer people live below the poverty line than you might expect for a place this size. About as many homes are rented as are lived in by their owners, and typical home values and rents are high, in line with much of the region. Winters are mild, with the coldest days in December still cool rather than freezing, summers are warm, and the year brings little rain.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment also employing a good share. Among the largest workplaces in Downey are Downey Medical Center, Downey Unified, and Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center. Unemployment has eased compared with a year ago, though across the county the number of jobs has stayed about level. A typical commute is a fairly long one, and a smaller number of people work from home.
Things to do. Dignity Health Sports Park, a stadium, is only a short drive away. For a longer outing, Disneyland, an amusement park, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are each a longer drive, and Dodger Stadium is another stadium within a longer drive.
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- 34,876households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Los Angeles County had 4,525,460 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 67° and lows near 47°; warmest in August, with highs near 83° and lows near 66°. About 12 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Long Beach Daugherty Field weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Downey
- Downey Medical CenterGeneral medical and surgical hospitals2,876
- Downey UnifiedSchool district2,082FTE
- Rancho Los Amigos Natl.rehab.ctrGeneral hospital1,397FTE
- Los Angeles County Office of Education SchoolsSchool district1,383FTE
- Downey Medical CenterGeneral medical and surgical hospitals1,373
- Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling1,068
- PIH Health Hospital - DowneyGeneral hospital991FTE
- City of Downey884
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 40 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,588 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- EarthquakesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Downey’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
Downey home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Downey$879,552
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Downey listings, and the typical home goes pending in 24 days — the market is heating up.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Downey22.79%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Downey24
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Downey100
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Downey32
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Downey$888,890
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Downey101.71%
Zip codes with a Downey address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Downey — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Downey
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90241 | Downey | 45,319 | $2,355 | $923,858 |
| 90242 | Downey | 40,767 | $2,181 | $818,841 |
| 90240 | Downey | 24,853 | $2,894 | $933,540 |